


About Face

by Stardust_and_Strawberries



Series: Clint Barton, human disaster [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Awesome Jane Foster, Gen, Humor, Science, Thor Is Not Stupid, clint on the other hand, everyone lives in the tower, mild body horror, photostatic veils
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-03-06 13:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3136298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stardust_and_Strawberries/pseuds/Stardust_and_Strawberries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor's electrical powers aren't limited to lightning. Clint's powers to cause chaos are probably limitless. Maria Hill isn't quite sure what she did in a past life to deserve this, but it must have been bad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I feel photostatic veils are a very underused plot device in the MCU. I also feel if anyone was going to misuse them it would be Clint, based on [ the picture of Jeremy Renner wearing ScarJo's stunt double's mask](http://stardustandstrawberries.tumblr.com/post/107425783242/randomblueboots-jeremy-renner-wearing-scarlett).

Clint hugged the wall as he crept in, confident that he'd left enough time for the room to have emptied. A quick glance confirmed that it appeared deserted, but long habit caused him to flit from the cover of one pieces of furniture to the next. At last he reached the relative safety of the doorframe, and let out a shaky breath of relief before smacking straight into Kate.

 

He shrieked and almost dropped Sam's jacket. Hurriedly he bundled it back around his hand.

 

"Okay, what did you do?" asked Kate through a mouthful of pizza. He attempted to dodge, only to have Darcy loom out of the shadows and block his escape. He considered the ceiling vents, but wasn't sure he could make it without exposing his hand.

 

"What did you do this time Hawkboy?" she asked, waving her pizza crust at him.

 

"What makes you think I did something?"

 

"One, you're sneaking into the Tower trying to avoid everyone. Two, Thor and Bruce didn't come back from the mission but Nat said they weren't hurt. Three, Nat only ever gets that pissed at you or Tony and Tony doesn't look scared."

 

"Four, we know you." added Kate.

 

Clint sighed and surrender to a superior foe. "Okay, well, it's a long story..."

 

***

 

The woman was petite and blonde, with a Roman nose and a determined set to her jaw. She ran and dodged with an athleticism that belied her apparent age, as the building's security staff chased her across the rooftop. She didn't break her stride as she approached the parapet but simply vaulted off the eighteen storey building into empty air.

 

With casual aerobatic grace Sam swooped and caught her as she plummeted, pulling up from his dive and furling his wings with perfect timing to let gravity slow their arcing flight into the cloaked quinjet hovering nearby. Their landing on the metal deck was as light as a footstep.

 

"Damn girl, that was a hell of a trust fall!" grumbled the Falcon, peeling off his goggles as the bay door closed behind them.

 

The woman smiled. "You haven't let me down yet Sam."

 

"Were you able to extract any of their data while you shut it down?" asked Hill, all business.

 

The woman nodded and handed her a USB stick as Clint gunned the jet and set it to autopilot to take them home. Beside them Bruce was sleeping off his exertions as the Hulk, wrapped in Thor's cloak.

 

"I've got their portal data at least, maybe Jane'll be able to figure out where they found the cosmic forces to power that thing."

 

Thor nodded gravely, the cuts on his face still not healed. He and the Hulk had born the brunt of whatever arcane energies had animated the construct, while the other Avengers had evacuated civilians, shut down the portal channeling power to it and gone in search of its controller.

 

Tony crossed his arms across his chest. "Okay, I think I speak for everyone here when I ask, who the hell is this?"

 

Thor turned to him, surprised. "The Lady Natasha of course!"

 

"You were out in the suit fighting that thing when we caught their second-in-command, so Natasha went in in a photostatic veil of her to try and switch it off." Steve explained as Natasha peeled the illusion from her face. "Wait, you were fighting it too Thor. How did you recognize her?"

 

"That...mess of electrical fields upon her face was supposed to be a disguise?" asked Thor.

 

"That's our best veil technology! Our own scanners can't see through it!" exploded Hill.

 

Thor looked embarrassed. "Sorry?" he offered awkwardly.

 

Natasha gave him a quizzical look and put the veil back on. "So what can you actually see Thor?"

 

"The electromagnetic interference patterns that distort the appearance of your face. I suppose it does look rather like a different face from some angles?" Thor offered, trying to be helpful.

 

Hill groaned and buried her head in her hands. "Two and a half years and a quarter of the goddamned R&D department trying to bust HYDRAS veils and he can just see through the damn things!"

 

"May I see it?" asked Thor, when he was quite sure Hill wasn't going to hit him. Natasha removed the veil, trying very hard not to laugh. He draped the flimsy looking film over his hand, flexing his fingers. Tiny vortices of electricity sparked on his palm.

 

"It won't do anything on your hand, it needs to detect the nerve signature of a face..." Hill began, and abruptly stopped when Thor found the right arrangement. The woman's face flickered into existence on his hand, his wrist forming the neck.

 

"Oh that is grotesque!" giggled Natasha. Tony simply turned white and backed away.

 

"That's like something out of a horror movie! Can you make it talk?" asked Clint.

 

"This really looks to you as though I have a head where my hand should be?" asked Thor, raising his arm. Steve swallowed uncomfortably. Tony darted backwards and fell over Sam's leg.

 

"It's seamless." Clint was awed.

 

"Does it have to be your hand? Could you do it on the back of your head, like that dude from Harry Potter?" asked Sam.

 

"Of course, it is simply a matter of manipulating the electric fields."

 

"So could you do it on your ass? Like, one on each cheek?" Clint demanded to know. Thor doubled over with laughter, the eerily blank face apparently attached to his arm resting on his thigh.

 

"I think you should stop before you make Maria cry." said Tony, who had discovered a whole new phobia and was keen to ensure the others never found out about it.

 

Thor recovered, with some effort. "Do you wish to try Clint, as your creativity far exceeds mine?"

 

"Okay, monsters I can handle but Barton's ass is above my pay grade." said Sam.

 

"On my hand! Let me try on my hand!" yelled Clint, as Maria closed her eyes and reflected that these people were Earth's greatest heroes. Thor peeled off the veil and laid it across Clint's hand, then wrapped his larger hand around the archer's and created the face. It remained, apparently growing out of Clint's arm, when Thor removed his hand.

 

"Gottle of geer! Gottle of geer!" squawked Clint, waving it at Natasha who rolled her eyes. Tony looked away.

 

"Let's see if she can fly the jet with her teeth!" he shouted undeterred, heading for the cockpit. In his haste to dodge Tony kicked the slumbering Bruce, who woke to the sight of Clint having apparently grown a second head where his hand should be.

 

***

 

"...so then he hulked out and Thor had to grab him and drop him in the ocean, and they're still out there and till Thor gets back I can't get this thing off my hand." finished Clint.

 

"So can we see?" asked Kate. Reluctantly Clint unwrapped his hand. "Whoah, that is supper-gross." she said appreciatively.

 

"And the worst part is that Hill seems to have forgotten she was angry with Thor and now she's gunning for me...Hey! What are you doing?" he yelled at Darcy, who was trying to feed the veil pizza. "That's not a real mouth, you're just smearing greasy cold pizza all over my hand!"

 

"But I guess you learned your lesson about playing around with SHIELD tech, right?" asked Kate.

 

"Are you kidding? Sam's a genius! No more sad tp costumes for me, next Halloween I'm dressing as Professor Quirrell!"


	2. Fangirls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't planned as a multi chapter work, but I couldn't let go of the idea of Thor being able to see through photostatic veils and then this happened.
> 
> Set in some alternative/future universe where all' swell with SHIELD.

"Hey Nat."

"Hi Mellie. You about later? I'm meeting your girls this morning, fancy grabbing lunch?"

"Busy I'm afraid, you know how it is. What brings you to my corner of the world?"

"You know Seabord Institute situation? Turns out your number one crush can see through photostatic veils better than any of SHIELD's technology. Or of Tony's for that matter."

"Huh. How's Tony taking that?"

"As badly as you'd expect. It's Pepper I feel sorry for, I don't know how that woman does it."

"And you think we can use that to find the infiltrators?"

"You have to promise not to laugh okay? I'm taking him in, under cover. Just picture that image for a moment would you? Thor under cover. And Doc Foster too, if anyone can figure out what it is they're building it's her."

"Oh you poor girl. How are you going to hide his arms?"

"I don't even want to think about it."

"Sorry Nat, I have to go."

"Bye now."

"Bye." 

Agent May ended the call as the guard changed and had rappelled down the building and knocked out the replacement before the security camera completed its arc.  
   
****

"Okay, let's run through this one more time." said Skye. "Who's about to walk through that door?"

"The Black Widow, Prince Thor Odinson and a technical specialist!" said Jemma, slightly breathlessly.

"And what are we going to do?"

"Match skintones and calibrate photostatic veils for Thor and the expert efficiently and professionally."

"And what are we not going to do?"

"Squeal, hyperventilate or babble about how excited we are to be meeting them."

"Okay, we got this."

"We got this."

"Deep breaths."

"Deep breaths." Jemma nodded, staring intently into her friend's face.

"One, two..."

"Are we interrupting something?" asked Natasha from beside Jemma's shoulder, causing her to squeak and jump three foot in the air.

"Uh, callsithetics?! Fitness is important?! Mens sana in corpore sano and all that!"

"Pleased to meet you Blaaaagent Romanoff!" stumbled Skye, holding out her hand. "I'm Skye and this is my colleague Simmons."

Natasha shook her hand with the merest hint of a smile quirking at the corner of her mouth. "This is Thor Odinson, and this is Doctor Jane Foster, the technical specialist who will be accompanying him. I'll be over here working on something, just pretend I'm not here." So saying she settled down in the corner of the lab, tapping frantically at a tablet.

Skye found herself staring into Thor's cornflower blue eyes, and damn if he wasn't as dreamy as Agent May said. The ardently egalitarian part of her brain that objected to deference to hereditary privilege found itself drowned out by the larger part that was desperately trying to remember how to address a prince.

"I'm honoured." she heard herself saying as he took her hand.

"The honor is mine, my lady. I was unaware that SHIELD had petitioned the services of a Geomancer."

Skye opened her mouth and managed to say "Uhhhheeeehehehehee?" Fortunately much of it was drowned out by Jemma.

"Oh my God you actually are Jane Foster aren't you? I mean you know you are but...The Jane Foster! The Dr Foster! I knew they were sending a physics expert but wow, you're The Physics Expert! I've been following your career, well I mean not really, it's not my field, heeheehee, but I saw you on Blue Peter, you probably don't remember it was a little segment on women in science, and I was fourteen, and you were so...could you sign something for me? Let me get something for you to sign, I don't expect you to sign part of my body hahahaha. Unless you want to?"

Skye recovered enough to kick Jemma in the ankle, which resulted in her stammering "PleasedtomeetyoutooPrinceOdinson." and actually aiming a distracted curtsy in his direction before turning back to Jane, who was struggling very hard to keep a straight face.

Skye wondered if Thor minded being almost ignored, but he was looking at Doctor Foster the way Coulson looked at Lola or Fitz looked at Mac.

"So you're the expert who's going to figure out what's happening in Professor Curran's lab then?" asked Skye quickly.

"Oh yes my friend was telling me all about Professor Curran!" interrupted Jemma. "He's very interested in his work on the eighty seven anomaly!"

"The eighty seven anomaly?" asked Skye, then wished she hadn't.

Jane nodded. "A distortion in the quantum fabric. It was first detected in nineteen eighty seven, though some people argue that was when it actually appeared. Professor Curran's in the second camp, and I must admit he makes a good case."

"I love it when you talk about science." cooed Jemma.

"Please excuse my colleague. She's, uh, she's British." said Skye.

"I'm half British." said Jane.

"Oooh, I know, I've read all about you!" Jemma gasped. Skye narrowed her eyes at her, and when that produced no noticeable effect dragged her away bodily.

"Please excuse us, we need to calibrate the thing! The thing that needs to be calibrated!" she called over her shoulder as she dragged Jemma into the lab closet.

"Oh my gooooooood" her friend whimpered, burying her head in her hands. "That was really creepy wasn't it?"

"Well not really creepy. Maybe just a bit creepy." Skye offered.

"On a scale of one to ten, how big a bit?"

"Maybe about a six? A five if she didn't hear all of it?"

"Ever since I saw her on Blue Peter I wanted to be just like her! I've followed her career ever since!"

"Okay."

"And she's so small! I just want to pick her up and squeeze her!"

"Now that? Off-the-scale creepy."

"Right, right." Jemma nodded as if ticking things off on a mental list. "Don't mention how small and adorable she is."

"How about you take Thor's readings and I'll take hers? That might be less awkward?" Skye suggested.

"Good plan!"

They reemerged from the closet to find Thor and Dr Foster exchanging slightly puzzled glances. A mop toppled after them. Skye kicked it back in hurriedly and almost managed to close the door on it.

"So we just need to take skin tone and conductivity readings from both of you to calibrate the veils you'll be wearing using these meters." said Jemma brightly, waving hers around and narrowly avoiding hitting Skye in the face. "If you could just bend down Prince Odinson..." she pressed the meter to his neck. "Thank you. It'll just take a few moments to transfer the data..."

"I assume you're not going to ask me to bend down?" said Jane with a smile. Skye determinedly ignored Jemma mouthing "So tiny!" behind her.

"No that's fine, just tilt your head...that's great."

"Skye's a beautiful name." mused Jane as the data were transferring.

"Thanks. I mean it's not my birth name, I picked it for an operation and it kinda stuck."

"Another Super? I haven't seen you at any of the cookouts. You should come."

"Doctor Banner's Salad of Three Beans is most excellent." Thor interjected.

Skye laughed. "No, hactivist. We were giving ourselves pseudonyms before all the cool kids were doing it."

Jane gave her an odd look. "You're not Skye of the Rising Tide are you?"

"You've heard of the Rising Tide?"

"Yeah, after SHIELD tried to steal my data" (Jemma looked mortified) "I got quite involved in the Guerilla Open Access movement. I don't really make that public, it doesn't look very good on tenure applications. But you did some great things with Data Quake."

"Data Quake was a bit of a disappointment to be honest, we were hoping for something on a sort of Aaron Schwartz Jstor scale and the only person who really delivered was LightningsGirl who just appeared out of nowhere and pulled off the Elsevier thing...wait a minute. No. Surely not."

Jane had turned bright pink.

"Oh my God! That was you wasn't it? You went right into the evil empire itself, released a fuckton of data into the public domain and then disappeared!"

"Like I said, that sort of thing doesn't look good on the CV. I was angry, then I got cowardly. But you, you lived it! You put that whole operation together!"

"But seriously, the best thing to come out of DataQuake was the name and your work,"

"Oh please, you laid the groundwork!"

"No you, you were extraordinary! The sheer volume of paywalled information you released into the public domain!" Skye paused to catch her breath. "I...I can't believe I actually get to meet you in person!"

Jemma smiled brightly. "Sorry about this, she's from LA. Excuse us for a moment, my colleague and I need to discuss the calibration again." She turned to Skye. "Clos...uh Calibration Room! Now!"

They scurried into the closet, Jemma remembering to reach out and drag the broom in behind then to allow the door to close.

"Give it to me straight Jemma." Skye begged her friend. "Was I fangirling?"

"Maybe a little bit."

"Oh my God, I wish the ground would just open up and swallow me!"

Jemma gave her a stern look. "You? Don't get to make those jokes."

"Right, yeah, sorry."

"We're done now anyway so let's just say goodbye like perfectly normal agents of a perfectly normal shadowy government organisation."

They shuffled back out.

"Your calibration room seems somewhat cramped. You should perhaps request additional funding." observed Thor. Jane elbowed him in the ribs.  
   
"Well I think we're done here now so it was wonderful to meet you both! And have a nice mission!" chirped Jemma.

Jane smiled. "Thank you both. You should come over for coffee sometime. I can show you round my lab in the tower and you can meet my assistant Darcy. You might know her as 50KVsparkle Skye."

"No. Way."

Jane grinned. "Yes way."

"We should get going now." said Natasha, startling both agents who had completely forgotten about her existence.

"Bye!" called Jane as she was swept into the corridor. The last they heard of them was Thor's amused "Lightning's Girl?" and Jane's embarrassed "You weren't meant to find out about that bit." When the lab door slid closed both women let out a breath and slumped on each other.

"Agent May can never know." gasped Jemma.

"On the bright side." said Skye. "That went a lot better than the time we met The Falcon."  
   
****

Surrounded by broken furniture and unconscious guards, Agent May smiled to herself as she finished watching the video on her phone. One of the guards twitched and she stared at him until he decided that further movement would not be a sensible life choice.

Swinging her booted feet off the console she had propped them on she looked at her watch and tutted. The helicopter she could hear in the distance was seven minutes late. Still, she mused, at least it had given her a chance to watch to the end.

Her phone rang as she was climbing the rope into the cabin. She patched it through to her headset.

"Did you get a chance to watch the security feed I sent you?" Natasha asked.

"Bless you for sending that through. Yes I did."

"They didn't do badly did they."

"In all honestly." said Melinda. "They did much better than I did the first time I met Thor."

Below her the building exploded into a chrysanthemum of flame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine Melinda May feels much the same way about Thor as Ming Na Wen feels about Christ Hemsworth.


End file.
